More of the same in both the "Regularidad" and "Mountains" classifications. Dave Arnold was given a further eight points by his top 3 sprinters, thus taking his tally to 74, and made one step closer to the Points title. His lead over the Selle-Wootton duo is up to eight points, while the next chasing group is trailing by 28. Even if Freire, Zabel or Stuart O'Grady should pull out of the race in days to come, it would be a hard task for any rivals to deny him victory.

José Miguel Elias, Eladio Jiménez and nobody's pick David Férnandez were the KOM scorers also on Tuesday. Such that Sergio Zanotti and Michael Hayes couldn't make any addition to their respective tallies for the second straight day. But as all their nearest rivals couldn't gain any points either, "los pilas" held onto the lead, and the gaps in the top places remained the same.

The (few) riders with either J.M. Elias or Jiménez (nobody has both) made some gains, but are still far from the top; they would have any solid chances in chase their point-awarding rider hold onto his top 3 place also after the next stages, but with so many hard climbs to be tackled in the upcoming legs, and so many great mountain goats hungry for glory, such a thing is highly unlikely, to say the least.

You'd better beware Jonathan Podmore and Marcelino Abantao anyway: they are sitting in fourth and fifth place of the current standings, both 19 points down on the leader(s), and the former has Sevilla and 2003 Vuelta KOM winner Cárdenas, while the latter picked a certain Roberto Heras as "A" rider.